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Free DocSend alternatives compared on price, tracking and limits

What DocSend costs, and how Papermark, Google Drive, Dropbox and Breathier compare for sharing documents by link and seeing who read them.

By The Breathier team · Published · 10 min read

A tidy desk seen from above with three differently coloured paper folders laid side by side, a laptop, a phone and a pair of glasses, as if choosing between them.

There are free alternatives to DocSend, but each one gives something up. DocSend itself has no free plan: after a 14-day trial, its cheapest plan costs $10 per user per month billed yearly (checked on 15 November 2026). Papermark has a free tier with page-by-page analytics. Google Drive and Dropbox are free for plain sharing but tell you little about how a document was read. Breathier is free and shows time spent on each page. Below are DocSend's plans and prices, each alternative as its own pages describe it, a comparison table and a quick way to choose.

What DocSend does, and what it costs

DocSend, which is part of Dropbox, turns a file into a link and reports who opened it and how long they spent on it. Its pricing FAQ says per-page analytics are available for PDF, Word, PowerPoint, Google Docs, Google Slides and Keynote files. Video, spreadsheets, audio and archives can be sent as download-only content. Visitors never need a licence; only the people sending need a paid seat.

Here is what the pricing page listed when we checked it on 15 November 2026 (US dollars):

Plan Billed yearly Billed monthly Users included What the plan card highlights
Personal $10 per user per month $15 per user per month 1 Basic sharing controls, document-level analytics, 4 eSignatures a month
Standard $45 per user per month $65 per user per month 1 Multi-file sharing, video analytics, file requests, custom branding, unlimited eSignatures
Advanced $150 a month $250 a month 3 Lightweight data rooms (Spaces), email authentication for visitors, dynamic watermarking, NDAs, screenshot protection
Advanced Data Rooms $180 a month $300 a month 3 Group permissions, due-diligence tracking, data room audit log, automatic file indexing

For anything beyond these four plans, the page points you to DocSend's sales team. The free trial is of Advanced Data Rooms, and the FAQ notes that unlimited visitors are not included during trials.

Several things come with every plan, according to the comparison table: revoking access, real-time engagement notifications, and a dashboard of visits. Dropbox's help centre adds that link settings such as requiring an email, a passcode, allowing downloads and an expiry date apply to all DocSend plans. Verified email, agreement gates and watermarks are kept for the Advanced and Advanced Data Rooms plans.

For a sales team or a company in due diligence, that is a coherent bundle. For a founder sending one deck to a dozen investors, it may be more than the job needs.

What "free" means in this comparison

"Free" covers three different things here:

  • Free with caps, such as Papermark's Free plan and Breathier, each with its own limits on documents, links or file types.
  • Storage you may already have, such as Google Drive and Dropbox Basic, where sharing is included but reading data mostly isn't.
  • A free trial, such as DocSend's 14 days, after which you pay.

The useful question is what is capped, and whether the cap matters for what you're sending.

The alternatives, one by one

Papermark: open source, with a free tier

Papermark describes itself on GitHub as the open-source alternative to DocSend, licensed under AGPLv3, and you can host it yourself. Its hosted Free plan includes one team member, 50 links, 50 documents, unlimited visitors and page-by-page analytics.

The feature table on its pricing page fills in the detail. On the Free plan you get time spent on each page, email capture, email notifications, password protection, expiry dates and download control. Statistics are kept for 30 days, and the dashboard shows up to your 20 most recent views. PDFs, images and spreadsheets are accepted on Free; Word, PowerPoint and video files need Pro, which also removes Papermark's branding.

Paid plans, checked on 15 November 2026 in US dollars:

  • Pro: $29 a month billed yearly, or $35 monthly.
  • Business: $69 a month billed yearly, or $90 monthly, with three team members, a custom domain, email verification and screenshot protection.
  • Data Rooms: from $119 a month billed yearly, or $179 monthly, with NDAs, dynamic watermarks and data room analytics.

Good fit: you want something close to DocSend with a free starting point and a clear path to data rooms. Watch for: the 30-day history on Free, and the need to export Word or PowerPoint files to PDF before uploading on that plan.

Google Drive: free and familiar, but quiet about reading

Every Google Account includes 15 GB of storage, shared across Gmail, Drive and Google Photos. You can share a file with named people as a viewer, commenter or editor, or switch general access to "Anyone with the link", which lets anyone open it without signing in. A setting lets you stop viewers and commenters downloading, printing and copying.

What Drive shows about reading is narrower than many people expect. The Activity dashboard names viewers and when they looked, but only for Google Docs, Sheets and Slides, and only to editors in the same domain as the file's owner. If a file isn't owned by a work or school account, Google says no one can see its view history. An uploaded PDF or PowerPoint file gets no page-by-page data at all.

Good fit: writing and editing with colleagues, or sharing inside one organisation. Watch for: sending to outsiders and expecting to know whether they read it. We compare the two approaches in detail in Google Drive sharing versus a tracked document link.

Dropbox Basic is free with 2 GB of storage. Its viewer info shows whether someone is looking at a file right now, and on Professional, Essentials, Business and Business Plus, when someone last viewed it. The catch: anyone who opens a shared link without being logged in or invited appears as a "Guest", whose name and email you can't see. Someone who downloads from a link without viewing it on dropbox.com doesn't appear at all.

Passwords, expiry dates and disabling downloads on shared links are available on Professional, Essentials, Standard, Advanced, Business, Business Plus and Enterprise. Dropbox is candid that disabling downloads doesn't stop people saving the content by other means.

Dropbox used to offer a feature called Send and track for tracked links. A Dropbox Community moderator confirmed in February 2025 that it was being discontinued because few people used it, so within the Dropbox family, tracked links now mean DocSend.

Good fit: you already store everything in Dropbox and mainly need passwords and expiry. Watch for: expecting to know who read a link, or for how long.

Breathier is free; you sign in with email or Google, and readers need no account. You can upload PDF, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, CSV and image files, up to 50 MB each (15 MB for spreadsheets and CSV files) and up to 200 documents an account. Nothing is converted: readers see the original laid out as it is, including Excel sheets with their tabs, and a download gives them exactly the file you uploaded.

Each document can have up to 50 links, each named for who gets it, with its own rules: an email (typed by the reader, not verified), a passcode, an expiry date, download on or off, and a switch that closes the link at once. For each visit you see the email if the link asked for one, when, the device, the country, total reading time, time on each page, slide or sheet, and whether the file was downloaded. Reading time only counts while the tab is visible and the reader has scrolled, tapped or moved in the last five minutes. Readers are told on the link's page that you can see when they open it and how long they spend on each page.

Good fit: sending decks, proposals and reports to people outside your organisation and wanting honest per-page numbers at no cost. Watch for: there are no email notifications when someone opens a document (not yet), and no data rooms, watermarks, NDAs, e-signatures, custom domains or team accounts. If you need those, a paid DocSend or Papermark plan is the better match.

Side-by-side comparison

Checked against each product's own pages on 15 November 2026.

DocSend Papermark Free Google Drive Dropbox Basic Breathier
Cost From $10 per user per month, billed yearly; 14-day trial Free; paid from $29 a month, billed yearly Free with 15 GB of storage Free with 2 GB of storage Free
Time on each page Yes, for PDF, Word, PowerPoint, Google Docs and Slides, Keynote Yes No No Yes, for pages, slides and sheets
Who opened it Email or device and location Email, if captured Names of signed-in viewers of Docs, Sheets and Slides, work or school accounts only Signed-in viewers; others appear as "Guest" Email, if the link asks for one
Passcode on the link Yes Yes No; access is by Google account instead Paid plans Yes
Expiry date Yes Yes Work and school accounts Paid plans Yes
Block downloads Yes Yes Yes Paid plans Yes, and printing
Data rooms Spaces, on higher plans Data Rooms plans Shared folders Shared folders No
Files on the free option No free plan PDF, images, spreadsheets Any file you store Any file you store PDF, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, CSV, images
An office worker comically buried up to the shoulders in heaps of printed pages and paper folders at their desk, smiling helplessly.

How to choose in six questions

Work down this list and stop when one answer rules a tool out:

  1. Do you need to know what was read, page by page? If yes, Drive and Dropbox are out; DocSend, Papermark and Breathier all measure it.
  2. Are your readers outside your organisation? Drive's Activity dashboard won't name them, and Dropbox shows people opening a link without logging in only as Guests.
  3. Do you need diligence features? Verified emails, NDAs, watermarks and audit logs mean a paid plan: DocSend Advanced or Papermark Business or Data Rooms. Our guide to whether an early-stage startup needs a virtual data room helps you decide if you really do.
  4. What format is the file? On free plans, Papermark accepts PDFs, images and spreadsheets; Breathier also takes Word and PowerPoint as they are.
  5. How long do you need the history? Papermark Free keeps statistics for 30 days.
  6. Do you want an email the moment someone opens it? DocSend and Papermark's Free plan list notifications; Breathier doesn't have them yet.

Whatever you pick, time on a page shows attention, not agreement; see what time on each page actually tells you.

Switching from DocSend without confusing your readers

Moving a live deck or proposal? A little order saves awkward emails:

  1. Save what you want to keep. DocSend's table lists document visitor export on Standard and above. Download it before your plan ends.
  2. Upload the same original file you used in DocSend, so the pages match what readers saw.
  3. Make one link per reader, named for them, so each visit is attributed to the right person.
  4. Rebuild the rules: email, passcode, expiry and downloads, matching what each reader had before.
  5. Send the new links with a one-line note, then revoke the old DocSend links so there's only one live version.
  6. Tell readers what you record. A short line in the email is courteous; Breathier also says it on the link's page.

For the specifics of sending a deck to investors, including when to follow up, see how to share a pitch deck with investors. More guides like these are on the resources hub.

FAQ

Is there a free version of DocSend?

No. DocSend's pricing page lists four paid plans, starting at $10 per user per month billed yearly ($15 monthly), when checked on 15 November 2026. It offers a 14-day free trial of its Advanced Data Rooms plan, without unlimited visitors during the trial.

What is the closest free alternative to DocSend?

For per-page reading data at no cost, Papermark's Free plan and Breathier are the closest. Papermark Free keeps statistics for 30 days and takes PDFs, images and spreadsheets. Breathier takes Word, PowerPoint and Excel files without converting them, but has no data rooms, and doesn't yet email you when someone opens a document.

Can Google Drive show who viewed my PDF?

Not in any detail. The Activity dashboard covers Google Docs, Sheets and Slides, and only for files owned by work or school accounts, seen by editors in the same domain. An uploaded PDF shows no per-page data.

Partly. Dropbox's viewer info shows signed-in people, and some paid plans show when someone last viewed a file. People who open a shared link without logging in appear as "Guest", with no name or email, and someone who downloads without viewing doesn't appear.

Is Papermark open source?

Yes. Its GitHub repository describes it as open source under the AGPLv3 licence, and you can host it yourself. There is also a hosted service with a Free plan.

Not with DocSend, whose visitors need no licence, or with Breathier, whose links open in any browser on a phone or computer. With Google Drive, people you add by name usually sign in with a Google account. If you allow "Anyone with the link" instead, they don't have to, and anyone who opens it without signing in stays anonymous to you.

Sources

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